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Rich White Soup

A savory soup made with fowl, veal, calf's feet, almonds, and a creamy chicken-bread mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Rich White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Butter the inside of a soup pot.

  2. Add the pieces of fowl and veal or calf's feet.

  3. Season with salt, cayenne pepper, and mace.

  4. Cover with water.

  5. Stew slowly for 1 hour, skimming well.

  6. Keep the pot covered.

Make the chicken mixture

  1. Remove the breasts and wings of the fowls.

  2. Chop the flesh finely.

  3. Mix the chopped chicken with the grated bread soaked in warm milk.

  4. Add the egg yolks and both types of almonds to the chicken mixture.

  5. Pound until well combined.

Finish the soup

  1. Strain the soup from the meat.

  2. Stir in the chicken mixture after the soup has reduced to 2 quarts.

  3. Boil the cream or rich milk separately.

  4. Add it hot to the soup gradually.

  5. Cover and let it simmer for a few more minutes before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fowls
Provide the main meat flavor and body of the broth as they stew.
Veal or calf's feet
Add gelatin and savory depth, giving the soup a fuller, silkier body.
Stale bread
Soaked in milk, it thickens the chicken mixture and gives the soup a smooth texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, adding richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Almonds
Add fat and a subtle nutty flavor that rounds out the soup.
Cream or rich milk
Adds fat and richness, giving the finished soup a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Adding the cream or milk and egg-rich mixture. Adding hot dairy too quickly or at a boil can curdle or scramble the egg yolks, so the soup should be added gradually and kept at a gentle simmer rather than boiling.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, bread, milk, egg, almond, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, bread, milk, egg, almond, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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